Bad news drivers: Gas prices inch higher after months of declines

Drivers recently spoiled by falling gasoline prices are now having to deal with a new reality: Higher costs at the pump.

The average price for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline has increased every day for the past 28 days to a national average of $2.30 per gallon, according to AAA. The steady rise reverses a record 123-day decline that started in September and ended last month with fuel costs reaching a five-year low of $2.03.

A major drop-off in worldwide oil prices drove the four-month long decline. Global oil oversupply cut oil prices by more than half between last summer and the beginning of 2015, but oil prices have slowly rebounded in recent weeks and the price most drivers pay at the pump has risen accordingly.

After slipping below $45 in January, the price of a barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude oil has since climbed by more than 10%. Brent crude topped the $60-per barrel mark earlier this month, but dipped slightly Monday to $58.90.

AAA also notes that fuel prices tend to rise at this time of year due to the fact that seasonal maintenance typically happening at oil and gas refineries tends to put a drag on fuel production.

U.S. motorists are still paying $1.11 less per gallon on average than they were at this point last year. The largest year-over-year savings gap experienced in recent months was $1.25 per gallon. Drivers in Utah and Idaho are currently seeing the lowest price at the pump with an average of $1.95 per gallon in those states. Hawaii, which tends to see the highest gas prices, is the only state where the average price for regular unleaded gas is more than $3, with that state’s residents currently paying $3.04 per gallon.

California is also seeing higher-than-average prices at $2.95 per gallon, while motorists in Texas are paying $2.12 per gallon.

Most Americans are spending less than $2 per gallon for gas

This post is in partnership with Time. The article below was originally published at Time.com

By Sam Frizell, TIME

The price of gas is plummeting like a bungee jumper without a rope.

A majority of Americans are paying less than $2 per gallon for gas for the first time since 2009, and the ever-cheapening fuel it helping put more money in consumers’ pockets and bolster the economy. About 6 in 10 U.S. gas stations are selling a gallon of gas for under $2, according to AAA. The average gas price has dropped for a record 120 consecutive days to less than $2.04 a gallon. That’s the cheapest average in nearly six years.

American consumers will benefit immensely this year from the drop: The Department of Energy predicted last week that the average American household would spend about $750 less for gasoline in 2015 compared with last year.

“It’s crazy,” Michael Noel, an economics professor at Texas Tech University who studies oil and gasoline prices, told the Associated Press of the fuel price drop. “But for consumers it’s very, very good.”

Lower fuel prices will also likely help the U.S. economy grow significantly this year. The World Bank expects the American economy to grow 3.2% this year, compared with 2.4% in 2014, and some forecasts are even higher.

The downside? Oil drillers and refineries in states like Texas and North Dakota are likely to suffer from lower gas prices. Layoffs of thousands of workers have begun in recent weeks.

Meet the asteroid mining executive of Davos: No joke

In Davos, you meet a lot of people who do interesting and unusual things. After all, those who are part of the global elite dream big.

On a shuttle, I sat across from someone who was fighting corruption in Angola and elsewhere. Next to me was the photographer Platon (he goes by one name), who chased Edward Snowden for a year before photographing him hugging a flag for Wired. He now has a non-profit that plans to raise awareness about human rights issues through portraiture.

But Chris Lewicki has by far the most out there (literally) job of anyone I have ever met at the World Economic Forum. He is an asteroid miner, or at least he wants to be one. He is the president and chief engineer of Planetary Resources, a company that soon hopes to launch rockets into space that will hook up with asteroids and start digging. Trapped in the rocks of asteriods, Lewicki says, is water. His company plans to melt the rocks they get from the asteroids to draw the water. Some of the water could be converted into rocket fuel by splitting off the hydrogen. His goal is to create roaming gas stations in outer space. The gas stations will also sell asteroid water. (Full disclosure: I am simplifying here. I met Lewicki at a wine-filled Davos party.)

This, of course, might sound a little far-fetched. Lewicki says Planetary is still a few years away from launching its firm’s mining rocket into space. The company hopes to extract just a single vial of water in its first mission. But if it can be done at all, Lewicki would be the one who’d know. According to his bio on Planetary Resource’s website, he was the flight director for NASA’s Spirit and Opportunity rovers that landed on Mars. He also has an asteroid named in his honor.

What’s more, the company—which was co-founded by Peter Diamandis, a space entrepreneur who made Fortune’s list of the World’s Greatest Leaders last year—has attracted some influential and high-profile funders. It has received investments from both Larry Page and Eric Schmidt of Google GOOG. And other investors include Virgin Group’s Richard Branson, Ross Perot, Jr., and billionaire venture capitalist Ram Shriram. Lewicki says the company has also received some funds from traditional mining companies.

Lewicki didn’t say how much money his company has raised or what his company could be worth. (Or if he did, I don’t remember. We were at a wine bar.) He also didn’t say how much it would cost to mine water in space, but he did say it would be cheaper than shipping water or rocket fuel to outer space.

After I asked a few more questions about his company—like “is there really a lot of demand right now for gas stations and bottle water in outer space?”—Lewiski told me to stop being a critic. Every industry, he said, has to start somewhere. Yes. Dream big. This is Davos, after all.